On 1 February 2021, Hutchison Ports Yantian (YANTIAN) held a ceremony to celebrate the achievement of its 200 millionth TEU, a world record it achieved in only 26.5 years ever since it handled its first TEU in 1994.

As an international shipping hub in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (the Greater Bay Area), YANTIAN epitomises Shenzhen’s progress under China’s reform and opening-up policies. In July 1994, YANTIAN welcomed the first line-haul container vessel, and now it has become the preferred port of call for the world’s mega-vessels. Starting from scratch, it handled only 10,000 TEU in 1994, while in 2007, it became the world’s first container terminal to reach an annual throughput exceeding 10 million TEU. On 8 January 2013, YANTIAN celebrated its 100 million TEU milestone, a record it achieved in a mere 18.5 years. Over the past 26.5 years, YANTIAN has evolved from a small fishing village into one of the world’s busiest container terminals.

A key container operator of Shenzhen and South China, YANTIAN serves over 1/3 of the import and export container traffic of Guangdong province and 1/4 of the container volume generated by the Sino-US trade. It has contributed to the Shenzhen’s position as an important logistic hub within the Asia-Pacific region and empowered the economic growth of the city and the Greater Bay Area.

Today, YANTIAN is capable of receiving the simultaneous calls of five of the world's largest 200,000-ton container vessels, which has become regular scenes of its terminal operations. Against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, YANTIAN bucked the trend and achieved a 2% increase in its annual throughput year-on-year, and its monthly throughput hit a record high 1.46 million TEU.

In the midst of the evolving COVID-19 and the complicated international trade situation, YANTIAN achieved its 200 million TEU milestone, sending a positive signal to the port and logistics industry to navigate the complex global business landscape and chart a new course for development.

Standing at the threshold for future growth, YANTIAN will leverage the opportunities brought by the Greater Bay Area and the “dual circulation economy”. It will strive to become the gateway connecting “internal circulation” of the domestic economic activities and “external circulation” of China’s economic links with the outside world, thus facilitating the growth of the Greater Bay Area and the establishment of Shenzhen as a pilot demonstration area of socialism with Chinese characteristics and a global marine central city.

On the same day, the opening ceremony of “YANTIAN, the Preferred Port of Call of South China for Cross-border E-Commerce” that followed signifies that YANTIAN has become an essential gateway for the export cargo of cross-border E-commerce, which will promote the establishment of industrial clusters for cross-border e-commerce enterprises in the community and is of great significance to the growth of cross-border e-commerce industry and the import and export sector of Yantian District.